Council restores funding for libraries, social programs

If you got caught talking too loudly in the downtown Central Library on Monday, it might have been a Seattle City Council member who told you to use your six-inch voice.

Seattle’s nine City Council members briefly worked alongside library employees Monday afternoon following a quick news conference to highlight the fact that they had restored about $860,000 to the library system after proposed cuts threatened to drastically reduce hours next year at branches around the city.

But things ended oddly, with a councilwoman’s voice raising slightly in a brief exchange with reporters.

Just before the press event ended, Councilwoman Jean Godden, the budget chair, thanked city employees who voted to take 10-day furloughs, which will save about $6.2 million. Godden said she and her staff would also take the furlough. Since the furlough is voluntary for City Council members, she said she wrote a check for $5034.39 back to the city, which covers her 10 workdays.

Seattle Times reporter Emily Heffter asked which other council members were planning to take the furlough and nobody immediately spoke up. Then, Councilwoman Jan Drago, who seemed annoyed, took the microphone to forcefully say she and Richard McIver were not taking the furlough. Then Drago abruptly and awkwardly ended the news conference.

Godden, when pressed about her colleagues, said she didn’t want “to put them on the spot.”

The final operating budget, which had to fill a $72 million shortfall through 2010, is slated for a vote next Monday. The final version will restore proposed cuts to several social programs and conservation efforts. It includes $1 million for three innovative drug programs – CURB, GOTS, and Co-STAR – that steer low-level offenders straight from arrests to social services and rehabilitation as long as they can stay out of trouble.

The mayor’s office had proposed cutting 330 operating hours to the library system. The council restored 140 of those, preserving 18 of 27 positions that would have been cut. In all, 11 branches throughout the city, including the Central Branch, will retain normal operating hours. Another 15 will switch to five-day, 35-hour weeks.

Councilman Nick Licata said the libraries are like “job manufacturing centers” because they provide people with access to computers so they can write resumes and search for work in the tough economic climate.

It also includes $100,000 in one-time funding for services available for homeless women and $50,000 for tenant improvements at a new shelter for Mary’s Place. It also provides $150,000 to launch a two-year pilot program that would provide shelter and assistance for children forced into prostitution.

Even with restorations for some social services, the council will be able to put $5.2 million back into the city’s rainy day fund, which was depleted by $25 million this year to deal with the shortfall, leaving just $5 million for future funding crises.

Godden said the council was able to do so by asking city departments to “scrub” their budgets for extra savings beyond the 4 percent proposed by the mayor’s office.